Huffington Post Op Ed 2/21/2011

Many have misread the recent eruption of riots in the streets of Manama, capital of the tiny, oil-rich Persian Gulf island state of Bahrain.

The government of Bahrain points an accusing finger at Iran. They say that the riots in Bahrain resulted from a well-planned sinister master plan of Iran — a next door neighbor — to topple the government. There’s more than a grain of truth in that accusation.

At first, the riots in Bahrain were perceived as another shaking Domino piece in the trembling Middle East, perpetrated by people demanding freedom and bread.

That is not the case in Bahrain.

Bahrain is neither Egypt nor Tunisia where poverty and oppression sent people to the streets. Bahrain is the most liberal of the Gulf States with a per capita gross domestic product of $40,400, the world’s 19th highest, although its population numbers only 764,000, ranking the 163rd in the world.

Political and military observers say that culprit in the current Bahrain riots is Iran, for a reason: In 2001 Saddam Hussein announced that Kuwait was in fact the 19th province of Iraq, and his army invaded Kuwait. That was the official cause for the first Gulf War. Now there are official and public voices in Iran claiming Bahrain is the 14th Province of Iran.

Therefore, it is clear why Iran has a strong interest in political change in Bahrain. Its veiled agenda is to overthrow the Sunni Muslim regime of the King, Sheikh Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa, and replace it with a Shia Muslim loyal to Tehran. Bahrain has 70% Shiite majority, who are very politically engaged and follow Shite Iran. The Shia majority in Bahrain is significantly underrepresented politically and discontent at how 2,000 family members of the King and his circle deal themselves the best cards. Bahrain is the hub of the U.S. 5th Fleet in the Persian Gulf and of a major British fleet. It is also a major banking and trade facility for the region. Bahrain’s oil production at about 40,000 barrels per day, and it natural gas sales, provide about 60% of its budget revenues. With those numbers, and with Iran ogling Bahrain’s oil reserves and strategic location strongly coveted by the U.S — the Iranians seem to have two goals. The first — send a clear message to the U.S.: You stir riots in Iran — an accusation the U.S denies — then we’ll wreck your strategic ally, Bahrain. That is not a small threat.

But even without wanting to get even for riots in Iran, Tehran has always had an independent agenda regarding Bahrain. That’s the second reason for Iran’s move to agitate the regime in Bahrain. The alleged subversive Iranian involvement in Bahrain this week is not new. Last summer the Bahrain government arrested 165 Shiites and accused them of being a part of “a sophisticated terror group supported internationally,” that was trying to topple the regime by force. That was not a new isolated incidence. In 1981, just two years after the Islamic revolution in Tehran, there were Shiite attempts to overthrow Bahrain’s government, and in 1995 there were Shiite riots in Bahrain, both supported by Iran. In 1996 an Iranian diplomat with contacts to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards was ousted from Bahrain for “undiplomatic” activities. Six individuals appeared on Bahrain TV and admitted that they were trained by Hezbollah in Lebanon, and received orders from an Iranian intelligence officer.

That pattern of Iranian involvement was repeated in 2005 when a Shiite crowed demonstrated in Manama in support of Iran’s supreme leader. In 2008 the Shiite demonstrations took a turn when demonstrators demanded the removal of the U.S 5th Fleet from Bahrain.

Again and again, the foot prints of Hezbollah, Iran’s terrorist organization subsidiary and dirty jobs contractor were visible in subversive activities in Bahrain.

If the Iranian plans to oust the Bahrain government and appoint a loyal head of state in his place succeed, their multiple goals would be achieved without any military movement. The Iranians will cause the ousting of the threatening 5th Fleet from Manama port. They will hold a strategic point near the straits of Hormuz where 20% of the U.S oil supply passes, and they will signal to the other Gulf states with Shiite population — such as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia to get in line with Iran, or else.

This is a challenge the U.S. cannot ignore.

Haaretz Op Ed 02/25/2011

The Swiss government’s decision, on February 12, to freeze Hosni Mubarak’s assets in Swiss banks will probably cause sleepless nights to other Middle Eastern rulers who liked to keep themselves in the sun and their assets in the dark. (Cynics will wonder what the Swiss government suddenly discovered that it didn’t know about them before. ) Still, old coffers may be seized, but new coffers will soon be open for business.

There were unconfirmed estimates regarding the magnitude of Mubarak’s personal wealth, ranging from $5 billion to $70 billion, and deposited in Britain, the United States and France. His family is also rumored to own property in London, Paris, Dubai and the U.S. Deposed Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was more blatant. His wife fled the country with one-and-a-half tons of gold, worth more than $55 million, probably just the latest addition to what the couple accumulated and deposited overseas during Ben Ali’s 20 years of rule.

Globally, these numbers are just the tip of the iceberg. The World Bank estimates that developing countries lose $20-$40 billion each year through bribery, misappropriation of funds and other corrupt practices by government leaders.

If countries can’t fight the theft of public wealth while their leaders are engaged in it, can they at least recover it after the leaders are deposed? This has never been an easy task, because countries that host the stolen billions are not particularly enthusiastic about helping in the recovery and repatriation of funds that are fueling their own economies – dubious sources notwithstanding.

However, a significant change occurred in 2005, when the United Nations Convention against Corruption was adopted by 140 states, including, among others, Switzerland, Tunisia and Egypt. The signatory countries agreed to cooperate in fighting corruption and provide legal assistance to foreign governments in gathering and transferring evidence for use in court to extradite offenders. Under the convention, countries are also required to support the tracing, freezing, seizure and confiscation of the proceeds of corrupt practices. The signatories agreed that in cases of embezzlement of public funds, the confiscated property would be returned to the state requesting it.

With the UN convention in place, it is clear why some corrupt rulers have been shaken. The assets they stole for a rainy day may not be available when the legal clouds over their heads open up. However, although the convention makes it sound simple, the process of discovering, seizing and repatriating stolen assets is a complex, lengthy and tedious undertaking. After all, despots don’t just deposit their holdings in the bank account of “Mr. & Mrs. Corrupt Ruler.”

Financial advisers, some even within the banks, spin a complicated international web of trusts and offshore corporations with nominee shareholders and directors. Sometimes, the web is so complicated that with the passing of time and people, the rulers themselves lose contact with some of their money. Therefore, the first and most difficult stage in the battle to recover these assets is to gather combat-zone intelligence, asking how much is hidden, and where. How do you start? A country newly freed of its dictator may resort to criminal complaints, civil lawsuits or administrative orders of seizure. As a rule, the stolen assets are situated outside the deposed ruler’s country, so substantial international efforts may be necessary before the first dollar, euro or yen is recovered.

In 20 years of experience working for U.S. government agencies in gathering intelligence on criminals who absconded with hundreds of millions of dollars, I have learned a firm lesson: Relying exclusively on foreign governments for assistance in identifying and seizing stolen assets being held on their soil is an exercise in futility. The smaller the country, the more likely it is to put off responding to another country’s request for assistance. Even when it does say yes, the help is often slow in coming.

I’ve even seen cases in which foreign government officials secretly leaked to the absconding criminal (in their eyes, just a respectable investor ) that the U.S. government was on his tail. So countries that seek to retrieve assets stolen by corrupt leaders must operate on two fronts : diplomatically – country-to-country and by invoking the UN convention; and operationally – through independent investigations by outside experts conducting worldwide intelligence-gathering on the assets.

In a nutshell, the asset hunters have a gun with just one bullet. Action must be taken simultaneously in all the places where assets are located, or the money whose existence is yet to be discovered will disappear. Investigators without specific experience in that particular field could trip on land mines planted by the rulers to expose the intelligence operation.

I know from experience: Early in my career, I tripped on one of those land mines, and I still carry a scar on my forehead to remind me to be more careful next time. The mine I stepped on was a corrupt bank employee to whom my target paid a hefty sum to alert him if any suspicious activity was conducted with regard to his account. I was physically attacked; but luckily, the money was seized.

Corrupt rulers know that the world has changed, and we have to assume they’ve adapted accordingly. One of the differences between a gas station robber and a white-collar criminal is that the robber wants cash, because its source cannot be traced. White-collar criminals want everything to look legal if the paper trail is followed. But when there’s a trail, there are traces for the professional to walk through, until a broken link is found, and he can say “Gotcha!”

Huffington Post Op Ed 02 10 2011

When President Mubarak of Egypt was still clinging to power, many had already started writing his political eulogy. First and foremost was President Obama. By talking to the protesting people of Egypt in support of their cause, Obama may have doomed Mubarak’s political future. When the world is trying to digest the meaning of the power transition to the military, there still questions: Why did the U.S take such a bold move in dumping Mubarak without knowing who’d come instead? Could it be that by replacing one absolute ruler with another – the commander in chief of the Army – the transition would tantamount to changing a room on the Titanic? Didn’t Obama’s advisors caution him that the U.S policy change could render it bald from either side?

The old sages of Israel described a man who had two wives, one young and one old. The young wife wanted him to look more youthful and pulled his grey hair, while the older wife desiring a more mature husband pulled out his dark hair. The result was that the man was left “bald from both sides.” In modern Hebrew that term is used to suggest a “lose-lose” situation.

President Obama took the commendable high moral ground by advocating for democracy, free elections and press in Egypt. Similarly, in the 1980s Ayatollah Khomeini urged his followers to “export the Islamic Revolution” — his version of proper government suitable for other nations. President Obama is exporting the American values of democracy and urges leaders of the region to follow suit. We know what happened when the U.S pushed for democracy in Iraq and in Gaza. The consequences are written in blood.

On the other end of the political spectrum stands foreign policy that was well described by Lord Palmerston (1784-1865), Britain’s foreign secretary and prime minister, who once observed that “nations have no permanent friends or allies, they only have permanent interests.” Henry Kissinger, President Nixon’s Secretary of State publicly adopted Palmerston’s doctrine. In the years to follow, the U.S has walked the tight rope combining the two doctrines: advocating democracy but supporting regimes that were anything but. President Franklin D. Roosevelt remarked in 1939 that the Nicaraguan dictator Somoza “may be a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch.”

Since the United States has significant interests in the Middle East, it has looked the other way for decades when human rights were abused in Saudi Arabia, or when the opposition was oppressed in Egypt. These regimes and others in the neighborhood were “our sons of bitches” and whatever they did was tolerated. Oil supply clouded ideological thinking.

Therefore, President Obama’s sudden shift in policy, from interest-driven to idea-driven, was a surprising wake up call to the region. In 1979 President Carter misread the map, ignored the outcry of the Iranian people and continued to support the ailing Shah. The result of that mistake is still shaking the region. Is President Obama trying to avoid the 1979 Iranian mistake, by urging Mubarak to step down immediately, although the circumstances in Egypt are completely different? Iran of 1979 was not ready for the Western style culture that the Shah was promoting, while the rebelling people of Egypt fight for jobs, freedom and opportunities.

There are huge stakes in this game. Being the biggest Arab nation with more than 80 million people, Egypt has been a major pillar of stability for the past three decades. The Israeli-Egyptian peace agreement of 1979 helped both Israel and Egypt free resources from their defense budgets to build their respective economies. Last week, the Egyptian government sent a terse message against the U.S. when President Mubarak in a TV interview said that President Obama doesn’t understand Egyptian culture.Today, President Mubarak was even more bitter toward the West when he said in his televised speech that “I had never ever been accepting any sort of foreign intervention in Egyptian affairs.” So one side of the lose-lose was reached, turning a long-lasting ally to a foe. Did the U.S message gain the support of the protesters? Not according to TV reports which describe unabated hatred to the U.S. “Bald from both sides” seems to have become a reality for the U.S.

The past stability in the region supports the regimes of Jordan and Saudi Arabia, both strong allies of the U.S. Not surprisingly, the U.S policy shift is likely to cause sobering moments to leaders in the region that made it to the helm with a 99.9% majority in the polls or by just being the son of the previous ruler. President Obama just sent the message that strong ties with the U.S. are no longer a long-term guarantee. Like almost all investment literature warns you, past performance is no guarantee of future results. Local leaders are now likely to diversify their political investments and allegiances, and look for new more reliable allies. Prime Minister Taip Erduan of Turkey did just that when the European Union rebuffed his efforts to join, and he aligned his country with Syria and Iran.

Did the U.S policy makers think it through? Do they know who is riding on the back of the emerging Egyptian tiger? If President Mubarak falls, who will be holding the reins? Will the Suez Canal remain open for U.S warships going to the Indian Ocean in support of the war in Afghanistan or to demonstrate U.S options against Iran? Will the new leader maintain the peace agreement with Israel, a strong ally of the U.S? How long would the temporary ruling of the Army last? In the Middle East, there’s nothing more permanent that “a temporary government.”

Will the new leader continue to look West or rather read the changing interests map and steer East, toward Islamic Iran? Will he be our son of a bitch, or somebody else’s?

Huffington Post Op Ed 12 06 2010

Balaam is described in the Bible (Numbers 22-24) as an “evil man.” He was asked to curse God’s people but instead, on three occasions, he produced blessings, not curses. As a result, the expression “Came to curse but ended up blessing” is attributed to people who mean to cause harm, but whose deeds result in a blessing. Is Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, a present day Balaam?

The secret U.S documents he revealed regarding the Middle East show that the leaders of Arab states, although publicly standing behind the Palestinian cause, are less concerned with that issue then they are with the Iranian threat to their countries. World leaders have repeatedly maintained that resolving the Palestinian problem will solve the conflict in the Middle East, and the world’s resulting headaches. But that’s not what Arab leaders told U.S diplomats and legislators, according to Wikileaks’ revealed secret cables from U.S embassies in the region. According to the documents, albeit selectively published by Wikileaks (thereby possibly portraying a distorted picture), the principal villain that causes the Arab leaders’ sleepless nights is Iran, not Israel. The Arab leaders repeatedly urged the U.S to help get rid of the Iranian “snake”, as the Saudi King called Iran, by cutting off his head, and were not quoted as asking the U.S to force Israel to concede to the Palestinian demands. The Saudis are more concerned with Iranian sponsored coup attempts to replace the royal ruling family with Iranian sympathizers who will yield to Iran’s claimed leadership of the Muslim world. The result is that Iran manages to unite Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the Gulf States and Israel against the looming Iranian nuclear threat.

Why?

Why have the Arab leaders turned mute on the Palestinian causes and secretly told U.S diplomats and Congressmen that Iran is at the top of their worry list?

The answer is obvious: they read the reality map. For them, the Palestinian issue is a nuisance and an excuse, but not a threat. But a nuclear Iran is an imminent and a genuine risk to their regimes and to the stability of the region. In 1990, George W. Bush Sr. organized a coalition to oust Iraq from Kuwait because Saddam Hussein put the West’s oil supply at risk. Bush could do that because the Iraqis lacked a deterring weapon: a nuke. However, in the 21st Century, a nuclear Iran could easily control the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia, and approximately 40% of the world’s oil supply. A nuclear Iranian will not fear a déjà vu of the 1990 invasion of the Coalition forces to Kuwait and Iraq, because the deterring existence of an Iranian bomb will do the talking, and cause the West’s resulting restraint from attacking Iran.

Iran’s Ahmadinejad openly declares that Israel “must be wiped off the map,” and Iran’s massive military assistance to Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon shows that they already have a beach head in the region. Therefore, the unavoidable conclusion is that there will be no Middle East peace if Iran becomes a nuclear regional superpower. If a Palestinian president thinks of a peaceful settlement of the conflict with Israel, and looks around and sees Iranians’ tentacles in Gaza and Lebanon, he cools off because he can take a hint.

With the hands of Ahmadinejad on the oil spigots of the region’s oil, he could bring the West, and its economies to their knees. How? By setting the price of an oil barrel to $200 or more. “The Americans don’t have to buy oil from us if they can’t afford our price” would likely be the words of a smiling Ahmadinejad to a cheering crowd in a Tehran square. “The Americans will pay our price and will give us the honor we deserve,” he will conclude.

The U.S economy would be crippled.

A fantasy? Think again. Why would Iran, the world’s 4th largest producer of oil, need nuclear energy? They have so much oil that it goes beyond their ability to refine it. Maybe nuclear energy is needed for electricity production as they claim? Scientists tell us that electricity production does not need 20% enriched uranium, 5% is enough. That and other hard evidence collected by intelligence services brings the chilling reality that Iran is rapidly progressing towards building a nuclear device, and no one but the Iranian leaders deny that.
History is repeating itself. In 1979 when the Iranians took over the U.S embassy in Tehran, they found a trove of confidential documents and published them in printed booklets. So, did the sky fall? Did a disaster follow? Does anyone still remember that short-lived embarrassment other than a handful of people with long memories?

Long gone are the days when a published previously secret diplomatic cable could ignite a war. In 1917, during World War I, the British intercepted and decoded a top secret telegram sent by Arthur Zimmerman, the German State Secretary for foreign affairs, via the German embassy in Washington DC to Heinrich von Eckardt, the German ambassador in Mexico In the telegram Zimmerman instructed Eckhardt to offer Mexico generous financial and other support if they attacked the U.S and tried to seize Arizona, Texas and New Mexico. By mongering a war between the U.S and Mexico, the Germans hoped to rivet the U.S and prevent it from joining the allies in the war against the Germans. After the telegram was intercepted and published by world media, Zimmerman confirmed its authenticity and resigned. Although Mexico declined the German offer, the U.S experienced a public cry for war and in April 1917, Congress authorized President Wilson to join World War I ending 2.5 years of U.S neutrality.

Did Assange, who clearly wanted to portray the U.S as a Satanic and selfish superpower actually help the U.S case? Or did the leaked confidential U.S cables damage U.S interests? There’s no question that damage was done in many told and untold ways. However, the documents also show the U.S’ genuine efforts to promote peace, prosperity, and democracy, even in countries where the rulers would rather receive just cash deposited into their Swiss bank accounts.

Assange inadvertently helped another case; By bringing to light what people assumed was happening in the dark, revealing that Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, and Bahrain, just to name a few, are secretly cooperating to stop the Iranians’ nuclear plans turning from a threat to a painful reality. Other sources revealed that Saudi General Presidency of Intelligence Chief Prince Muqrin bin Abd al-Aziz and heads of the Israeli Mossad have been secretly meeting in Jordan during the past year to forge a joint front against the Iranian nuclear threat.

Julian Assange is not a modern Balaam, nor its present day talking donkey, but a pathetic anarchist with a name and appearance of a James Bond villain. Nonetheless, sometimes history has a sense of humor when it chooses a messenger to make its point.

The Huffington Post Op Ed 11 04 2010

This is no longer a smoke screen or a typical Iranian ploy or even a merchant’s negotiation tactic. Hezbollah, Iran’s Lebanese power house, has made it clear: Lebanon could soon become an Iranian front basis, a thousand miles closer to Europe and a stone’s throw from Israel’s northern border. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit last month to Lebanon marked Iran’s next move in the region. Iran has decided to openly become a major player in the Middle East, and give the democratically elected government of Prime Minister Saad Hariri an offer it can’t refuse: extricate Hezbollah from the forthcoming turmoil likely to be stirred by the imminent accusation of Hezbollah by an International Tribunal in the investigation of the assassination of Rafik Hariri, the current Prime Minister’s father, or start packing.

According to a report published Monday by the Lebanese al-Akhbar newspaper, Hezbollah has sent a strong and bold signal of its intentions to corner Hariri and take effective control of Lebanon. Hezbollah conducted a simulation of the zero hour to demonstrate its ability to maintain a security and military grip on Lebanon, thereby giving its Iranian master the coveted reins over Lebanon. The newspaper also reports that the simulation preceded an electronic Israeli simulation for a future war with Hezbollah.

Why now?

Hasan Nassarallah, Hezbollah’s leader, understands that the moment of truth is approaching fast. It is widely expected that the International Tribunal for the investigation of the assassination of Rafik Hariri will conclude that Hezbollah is responsible for Hariri’s death. Therefore, it’s not a coincidence that Hezbollah flexed a muscle demonstrating its ability to deploy security and political forces and effectively control Lebanon, without bloodshed and without targeting citizens or residential areas.

The fast deployment was carried out in less than two hours, and was “designed to hold a security and military grip on large areas of Lebanon,” Al-Akhbar wrote. The report said that the targets included centers and sites as well as political, military and security figures. The report said Hezbollah’s plan includes pinning down the Lebanese officials’ whereabouts and arresting them “in order to curtail their movement and get hold of major cities in Lebanon.”

Why did Hezbollah go public now?

The public disclosure by Hezbollah of its military maneuvers and its intended political message is unusual for this secretive organization. However, the prospects of victory made Hezbollah take that move. They are taking advantage of a rare opportunity: the other major players are busy. The U.S is preoccupied with the mid-term elections and the Saudis are busy basking in the glory of helping the U.S detect the potentially fatal bomb packages sent from Yemen. Behind the scene, Saudi King Abdullah is also attempting to broker a settlement that would leave both Iran and the U.S out of the picture. Israel is monitoring the situation closely, but is making no overt moves.

The message that comes from Hezbollah and Tehran to the West is clear. Get rid of the International Tribunal for the investigation of the assassination of Rafik Hariri, or face turning Lebanon into an Iranian base.

What could the U.S or the U.N do?

As long as there’s a legitimate government in Lebanon, it can look back to see what previous Lebanese governments did under similar circumstances: cry for outside help. In 1958 a rebellion broke out in Lebanon, and 5,000 U.S Marines were sent to Beirut following a request of the Lebanese government. After the crisis subsided, a new government was formed and the Marines left.

In 1982, following repeated attacks on its civilian centers by the Palestinian Liberation Organization, Israel invaded Lebanon. Ten days later, the Israeli Army were entrenched outside Beirut, forcing Yasser Arafat, the PLO leader, to leave Lebanon under the auspices of a Multinational Force comprised of U.S. Marines and French and Italian forces.

Will the U.S or other western nations agree to intervene again in Lebanon? That will not be an easy decision. On April 18, 1983, the U.S. embassy in West Beirut was bombed, killing 63 people. Later this year the Multinational Force suffered a devastating blow when suicide bombers drove a truck laden with explosives into the U.S. Marine and French Paratrooper barracks in Beirut, killing 241 American and 58 French soldiers. Therefore, with a growing opposition in the U.S to the war in Afghanistan, it is unclear what the U.S administration will do: send troops again, or sit on the sideline watching the Lebanese government collapse into the receiving Iranian hands.

In this zero sum game, the clever merchants of Iran created again a win-win situation for themselves, and a lose-lose situation for the West. Unless the West intervenes, Lebanon’s fate is doomed. It is too coveted a prize for the Iranians to let go, under any circumstances. On the other hand, U.S intervention could be costly in human lives and may only delay the process, not eliminate it. The unavoidable conclusion is that the U.S and allies must choose the lesser evil. A bold and immediate move led by the U.N or the U.S, or we will soon see Lebanon as an Iranian base on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea.

The Huffington Post Op Ed 10 12 2010

The Iranians are frantically looking for those responsible for infecting their nuclear and industrial facilities with Stuxnet, an extremely sophisticated and dangerous viral computer malworm.

The Iranians should also worry what could come next in this cyber war. Their country’s electrical system may fail. Valves and spigots of a sewage treatment facility could be turned open, flooding Tehran’s streets with human waste. Can that happen? Most probably, if these facilities are managed by SCADA – Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition systems, such as the computers that were just infected.

Who were the attackers that knew how to penetrate through five zero-day “security holes,” and plant the malworm that not only attacked Iran, but infected computers in other countries as well? Since the malworm was so sophisticated, there is a consensus among experts that it was the product of a state, rather than a ploy of a hacker playing for fun.

The Iranian security services and computer experts are scrambling to rid their computers of the malworm that was “mutating and wreaking havoc on computerized industrial equipment in Iran,” according to IRNA, Iran’s government news agency. Hamid Alipour, the director of Iran Information Technology Company, a government agency added, “The attack is still ongoing and new versions of this virus are spreading.” Alipour warned, “personal computers were also being targeted by the malware although the main objective of the Stuxnet virus is to destroy industrial systems, its threat to home computer users is serious.” General Hossein Salami, Lieutenant Commander of IRGC the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps said that, “The IRGC and Army have designed defense systems for all points of the country, [and] an assuring defensive plan has also been devised for the Bushehr nuclear power plant.”

Russian technicians with unlimited access to all systems at the Bushehr nuclear reactor were questioned, while others hurried to leave Iran with their families. The Iranian Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi has announced last week that several “nuclear spies” had been arrested, but failed to identify them or their nationality.

These official statements are unusual because thus far Iran has been reluctant to admit military or security vulnerabilities. So why do it now?

The answer probably lies in the bigger picture. Iran seems to be seeking revenge against the U.S and its allies for imposing painful sanctions. Since the Iranians cannot retaliate directly against the U.S., without risking severe consequences, then why not accuse Israel of waging the cyber war, rightly or wrongly? That could give the Iranians a pretext, albeit transparent, to retaliate by directing their conflict-hungry satellite terrorist organization Hezbollah to shell Israeli civilian centers from Southern Lebanon. Is that the reason president Ahmadinejad is coming to Lebanon?

Common wisdom says that cyber wars are bloodless, smokeless and leave buildings and infrastructure intact. Or are they?

The Stuxnet attack on Iran first focused on SCADA industrial control systems that are broadly used by energy, nuclear, electrical, water, sewage treatment, telephone, and chemical companies. The damage from a cyber attack on a SCADA system could be substantial. From a temporary loss of service to a total failure with catastrophic dimensions cascading to multiple locations for an extended period. Attackers may use any of the multiple penetration options to get into the system: planting a malworm during production or installation of the SCADA device, wireless transmission of the malworm, hacking into the control system computers and linking to the modems used for the control systems’ maintenance, or physically attaching a pinky-finger-size flash drive into a computer that later would unwittingly log into a central system and contaminate it. Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization confirmed last week in a speech at the International Atomic Energy Agency that Iran has been fighting espionage at its nuclear facilities, and that people working at Iran’s nuclear facilities were lured by promises of better pay to pass secrets to the West. Salehi did not provide additional details, but the timing of his statement might hint how the Stuxnet malworm penetrated into Iran’s nuclear facility computers.

Once a SCADA system is accessed, the attacker can infect it with a computer malworm that could manipulate the data used for operational decisions to cause damage, or modify programs that control critical equipment to shut down or send the system haywire. The malworm can hide the changes it made and even allows remote upgrades of the malworm if countermeasures are employed by the infected target. A sophisticated malworm such as Stuxnet could potentially include code that would cause uranium enriching centrifuges to explode under high pressure, or at a certain date. Did it actually do it? There were reports that Iran’s uranium enrichment plant at the Natanz facility was attacked by Stuxnet and sustained damage. An earlier report suggested that in 2009 that site suffered a serious nuclear accident that reduced the number of uranium enriching centrifuges by at least 25%. Was Stuxnet the reason?

Therefore, can the Iranians now be confident that no additional, more serious attacks will be forthcoming? Can they be sure that no foreign intelligence agents managed to “treat” the Iranian bound SCADA systems and plant a dormant Trojan horse or a viral computer malworm that would be awakened and cause havoc on a certain date or upon a single transmitted command? To make things worse for the Iranians, many industrial control systems are linked to the location’s central computer system, thereby exposing these external computers to the contagious viral effect of the malworm. That could explain the contamination of many personal computers owned by Iranian officials who logged into their agencies’ central computer systems.

Control systems with proprietary command menus such as SCADA systems are difficult to operate by an outsider, and wrong commands would be harmless and could attract attention to the attempted break-in. That explains why thus far there were only very few intentional attacks on critical infrastructure industrial control systems that caused any damage, even when the intruders were able to break their way into the system.

However, top professionals, such as the attackers who designed Stuxnet, showed that they were able to overcome these hurdles and cause significant damage. In fact, there were probably two versions of Stuxnet. Apparently, the first version did not perform its destructive mission well, and was replaced by a viler malworm. The assumption that foreign agents were involved is supported by the fact that the attackers were able to identify the exact type of the SCADA system used by the Iranians, thereby allowing computer experts to write new code that finally did the destructive job.

The SCADA control systems include supervisory control and data acquisition systems, distributed control systems, and programmable logic controllers. These systems are primarily used for remote monitoring and for sending commands to valves and switches. That capability should cause serious concerns to the Iranians. Although Iranians officials express their concern regarding Stuxnet’s effect on their nuclear reactor systems, they should also worry what could potentially happen to civilian facilities.

What if, for example, a sewage treatment facility’s SCADA is taken over by attackers who would send a command to open all valves and spigots of the Tehran sewage treatment facility and flood the capital city with raw sewage? Other than the disgust and the smell, there are serious health risks: spread of disease and the contamination of fresh water supply.

A fantasy? Not really.

In 2000 in Maroochy Shire, Queensland Australia, Vitek Boden, a disgruntled former employee remotely accessed the controls of a sewage plant and discharged 800,000 liters of raw sewage into local parks and rivers, as well as the grounds of a Hyatt Regency hotel. “Marine life died, the creek water turned black and the stench was unbearable for residents,” said a representative of the Australian Environmental Protection Agency.

So, whodunit to the Iranians? Information, or maybe disinformation was spread to suggest that the infection had first come from computer notebooks used by Russian engineers working at the site of Bushehr power plant. Other reports suggested that the United States has sought to devastate Iran’s nuclear program by attacking Iranian computer systems. The New York Times hinted it was Israeli Intelligence. Others were also suggesting that Israel was behind the attack because one of the Stuxnet internal computer codes included the name “myrtus”. The attack was announced during Sukkoth, a Jewish holiday that is celebrated with “the four species”, one of which is boughs with leaves from the myrtle tree. On the other hand, the “myrtus” reference could in fact be a reference to one of SCADA’s components known as RTUs (Remote Terminal Units) and that this reference is simply “My RTUs” – a tool within SCADA.

I found yet another reason that may allow conspiracy theorists to insist that Israel was the culprit; typing Stux in the Hebrew mode on a dual-language Hebrew-English keyboard, would bring the word “דאוס” God in Latin. Are the alleged attackers hinting to the wrath of God that could follow unless the Iranians stop their development of nuclear capabilities and repeated threats to destroy Israel?

The Huffington Post 9 21 2010

Nobody has ever told me not to quit my day job. In fact, I was expecting some of my friends who didn’t run away fast enough, to suggest just that after I pinned them down with politically incorrect questions: “Have you read my thrillers yet?” The odd reality is, that instead of retiring, or slowing down at 66, I now have two jobs. I’m a trial lawyer, mostly for the U.S. government’s civil litigation cases in Israel, and a writer of intelligence thrillers. Somehow, the jobs have intertwined, and now I can’t let go of either.

For two decades, I conducted a double life. In one, I appeared in Israeli courts on behalf of the U.S. government and other mega clients, and in the other, I was hovering around the world, conducting sensitive undercover investigations and intelligence gathering for several U.S. government agencies, mostly by trailing absconding white-collar criminals. My writing during that period was limited to legal briefs in Hebrew and reports in English to David Epstein, my supervisor.

Then, in the early 2000s, David Epstein, the sharp-minded Director of the Office of Foreign Litigation at the Justice Department at the time, told me something that changed my life forever. He said, “I’m always looking forward to reading your foreign investigation reports.” Why? I asked him, and he responded, “Because they read like thrillers.”

Shortly thereafter, I went on a U.S. government assignment to a former Soviet Republic to snoop on a particularly vile organized crime group that had started extending its tentacles to the U.S. My local contact, an INTERPOL liaison officer, came to my hotel two days after my arrival with some bad news. “Your cover has been exposed by the bad guys, we must pull you out. Don’t leave your room. We’ll bring you to the airport tomorrow morning.” It was 4:00 p.m. and I was stuck in a small hotel room with a black and white TV that spoke only Russian. But there was also a small desk, and I had my laptop. I started writing, and the words flowed from an untouched and obscure section of my subconscious, through my hand and into the word processor, as if my consciousness had nothing to do with it, and my hand — typing with two fingers — was just the medium. At 4:00 a.m., when my INTERPOL contact came to pick me up, I was already on page 100. This is how “Triple Identity,” my first thriller, was born.

Like any aspiring writer, I thought that publishers would soon line up to get me to sign up with them. I quickly found out that publishers don’t talk to writers, only to God, the Grishams and literary agents. So, I started looking for a literary agent. Dark reality soon dawned on me. Nobody answered my letters, and those few righteous that did, declined representation. One of them even wrote that he “didn’t fall in love with the thriller.” Another one suggested I buy his book on how to write and sell novels. I soon found out that his book wasn’t selling.

In the end, self-help, persistence and a little old-fashioned ingenuity did the trick, and I found not one but three publishers to commercially publish my four intelligence thrillers in hardcover, trade paperback, mass-market pocket book, audio and electronic editions.

Much to the chagrin of my wife, some of my friends said in envy that soon I would start to receive fan mail from young females. They were wrong of course. The reader mail I get is typically from members of the law enforcement and intelligence communities, telling me that reading my thrillers makes them feel like they are participating in the action. I also get mail from very eloquent retired librarians who amaze me with their deep insights and critical reading.

I no longer chase the absconding criminals, but in 20 years, I’ve had enough adventures to fill 10 thrillers, and those are just the adventures I can write about, albeit with changed names, locations and events. My earlier estimate that I would die by the bullets of some criminal I was chasing in hot pursuit did not materialize. I continue writing, and I continue litigating; therefore, quitting my jobs would also mean quitting on life.

The Huffington Post Op Ed 7 20 10

I don’t purport to suggest that Shahram Amiri or the Iranian intelligence services read my July 13 Op Ed (in which I posed ten questions following Amiri’s public surfacing in the U.S.) and then rushed to respond. That said, Amiri’s July 15 appearance on the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting’s public television offered some answers, while simultaneously giving rise to daunting new questions.

First, a recap: On July 13 I wrote, “Shahram Amiri, an Iranian nuclear scientist, went missing in May 2009 during a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia. Other than the fact that Amiri subsequently resurfaced in the U.S., almost everything else in the espionage-thriller style case is disputed publicly. The barrage of information offered during the past 5 weeks makes it difficult to distinguish between genuine information, disinformation and spins.

“On June 8, 2010, in a video clip broadcast on Iranian state media, a man claiming to be Amiri said he had been kidnapped by CIA agents during a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia in 2009. ‘They took me to a house located somewhere that I didn’t know. They gave me an anesthetic injection,’ he said in the video. He then said that he was living in Tucson, Arizona, and had been subjected to eight months of ‘the most severe tortures and psychological pressures.’

“On the same day, a different video clip was posted on YouTube, appearing to have been recorded by the same person, completely contradicting the version offered in the previous video. In the second video, the person claimed to be in the United States voluntarily to continue his education, ‘I am free here and I assure everyone that I am safe.’

“In a third video broadcast on Iran state TV on June 29, 2010, a man appearing to be Dr. Amiri said, ‘I, Shahram Amiri, am a national of the Islamic Republic of Iran and a few minutes ago I succeeded in escaping U.S. security agents in Virginia. Presently, I am producing this video in a safe place. I could be re-arrested at any time.'”

Then on July 13 at 6:30pm, Amiri walked into the Pakistani Embassy in Washington, which hosts the Iran interests section, since Iran has no diplomatic ties with the U.S., and asked to return to Iran. Shortly thereafter, he flew back to Tehran unhindered.

Below are some of my original questions along with relevant statements from Amiri, as quoted by the NY Times and by Iranian Press TV, followed by new intriguing questions that Amiri’s statements raise.

2. If the person is indeed Dr. Amiri, how did he manage to escape? Wasn’t he being held in a safe, escape-proof environment guarded by U.S. intelligence community agents? Did he have outside or inside help?

Amiri said in his most recent interview that CIA and FBI agents had stormed his house in Tucson, Arizona, after he posted his first video message on the Internet. He also said that he was moved to that house, which had more comfortable residential surroundings than his military place of custody.

Amiri’s statement is a strong admission that recently, he lived freely in the U.S. This supports the U.S. position and undermines Amiri’s claim that he was in custody when he allegedly managed to escape. His new account on Iranian TV sounds more like a tale taken directly from A Thousand and One Nights, the roots of which are in ancient Arabic and Persian folklore. Why did he offer such an implausible explanation? Did he invent it or was the script written for him by the Iranian security services?

The statement is also incredible. In the first June 8 video, Amiri said he had managed to escape, and yet now he claims that he was in a house stormed by the CIA and FBI. Was it the house they provided him with? If so, why did he claim to have escaped if he was still in the house? Was it a new house traced by the CIA and FBI? If so, it’s hard to believe that, aside from forcing him to record another video in which he assures that he came to the U.S. voluntarily, the CIA and FBI just walked away. After all, they knew of Amiri’s intention to return to Iran and propagate the ‘captive’ story, per his video.

3. How did Dr. Amiri know to contact and identify his supporters? How did they know to contact and identify him? Was there a pre-arranged procedure of contact, which may support the sham defection theory?

This question remains mostly unanswered. However, in his Iranian TV interview, Amiri said, “In reality, our country’s intelligence services were able to contact me and they provided me with the necessary facilities to make my first film.”

6. In the third video he said that he had escaped a few minutes earlier. If his claim is true, then it means that Dr. Amiri was moved to an Iranian “safe house” in Virginia not far from the location where he was being held by U.S. agents. Who prepared and maintained that “safe house?”

According to the most recent version of the story, perhaps the Iranian agents he alleges helped him moved him to a safe house. Does Amiri think that the CIA and FBI agents involved would ever have let him return to Iran before they discovered and arrested any such Iranian agents? And since Amiri was allowed to board a plane back to Iran without interruption, perhaps his story about Iranian intelligence services helping him in the U.S. is yet another tale?

8. Who filmed/made the videos in which Dr. Amiri claimed to have been kidnapped?

Amiri said in the interview that after further contact with Iranian agents, he was able to hold a brief video conversation with his wife, which gave him “complete confidence” in the Iranian authorities and the well-being of his family.

Amiri did not disclose from what location he was able to hold the video conference call with his wife, however he seems to suggest that he was concerned about how the Iranian security service would treat him if he returned.

Why should he worry? He claimed that he was abducted and managed to escape. Wouldn’t that guarantee him a hero’s welcome? Or maybe Amiri correctly feared that his tale would be met with suspicion back home? When Amiri decided to return, he didn’t realize that trouble would come so soon. Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said in a press conference in Tehran on Thursday that the “details of his abduction will be clarified after an investigation.” These words should put the fear of God in Amiri. Indeed, if the U.S. account is true, Amiri should start counting his days to a fateful meeting with an Iranian executioner.

Two final notes and one suggestion: When Amiri disappeared, Iranian media described him as a nuclear scientist. However when he returned to Iran, he was referred to by Iran as an “academic” or “researcher.” Is this a concerted effort to belittle Amiri’s status and his access to confidential information on Iran’s nuclear plans? Seems so: “Shahram Amiri is not a nuclear scientist and we reject it,” Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Hassan Qashqavi told reporters at Imam Khomeini Airport, adding that he is a researcher in one of the universities in Iran.

Amiri said that the U.S. had offered to swap him for the three Americans, Joshua Fattal, Shane Bauer and Sarah Shourd, who were arrested in the western Iranian city of Marivan for illegal entry into the country in July 2009. Iranian Press TV said that officials in Iran had dismissed the proposed swap. This sounds like another Iranian attempt to show that Amiri was a captive, not an asylum seeker.

Amiri said that the United States arranged for him to attend a university in Virginia and supplied him with a driver’s license and a Social Security number, even though, he said, he had not requested either document.

Perhaps the U.S. should release copies of Amiri’s various applications with his signature on them. If these are available, it would be interesting to hear Amiri’s explanation, if he’s available for comment.

The Huffington Post Op Ed 7 14 10

In June 2007 Ashraf Marwan, an Egyptian businessman, fell to his death from the balcony of his London apartment.

Did he fall, jump or get a push? These questions have lingered for the past three years and remain unanswered. If he was murdered, then his death could help us figure out whether Marwan was a loyal Israeli spy, a double Egyptian-Israeli spy or a spy with shifting loyalties.

Marwan was a son-in-law of former Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser and a close aide to Nasser’s successor, Anwar Sadat. Israeli sources labeled him as the best Israeli spy ever, one who gave Israel an early warning of the break of the October 1973 war with Egypt. At the same time, he was accused by Israel’s former chief of military intelligence General Eli Zeira of being an Egyptian agent controlled by Egypt, pretending to be a spy to deceive Israel.

With two conflicting accounts regarding Marwan’s loyalty, it’s little wonder that there are multiple assumptions about how he died. If he was indeed a victim of foul play, who pushed him?

Was Marwan killed by Israeli Mossad agents attempting to prevent the publication of his memoirs, which vanished from the apartment when his death was discovered? Or maybe the assassins were Egyptian agents avenging Marwan’s alleged betrayal (if he was indeed serving Israel only)? Perhaps the assassins were unrelated to Marwan’s distant past, and his death related to his immediate past of arms deals and other businesses, including an association with Libya’s president Muammar Khadafy? Conspiracy theories aside, is it also plausible that Marwan’s death was mere accident or even suicide?

Can Marwan’s personal history shed light on his loyalties?

After completing a degree in chemistry in 1965, he joined the Egyptian Army and in 1966, he married Mona, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s third daughter. After a short stint in a junior position in the presidential press office, Marwan went to London to obtain an advanced degree in chemistry. There, he was rumored to have had a romance with the wife of a wealthy Kuwaiti sheik, who sponsored Marwan’s lavish lifestyle. President Nasser discovered the affair, ordered him back to Egypt and asked his daughter to divorce him. She refused. Back in Egypt, although Marwan managed to have his father-in-law, President Nasser, give him a few political assignments, Marwan never held a top position in Nasser’s regime.

In the spring of 1969, Marwan became a “walk in” spy for Israel. He approached the Israeli embassy in London and offered his clandestine services. After being rejected twice for fear of a trap, he was finally recruited. Included in the Israeli Mossad’s assessment of Marwan’s motives was the fact that he was greedy. He demanded $100,000 for each contact he made with Israel; on the other hand, he expressed disillusionment with his country. It is not farfetched to assume that Marwan was also bitter that President Nasser had not appointed him to high government positions.

As is usual in the case of walk-ins, the Mossad demanded that Marwan prove his new loyalty. And indeed, Marwan provided the Mossad with the record made of President Nasser’s secret visit to the Soviet Union on January 22, 1970, during which the president sought a Soviet supply of fighter jets. Then, President Nasser suddenly died in September 1970, of a heart attack at the age of 52, without having had a known history of cardiac ailments. Marwan’s career in the Egyptian government flourished when President Anwar Sadat succeeded Nasser, leaving behind Ali Sabri, another contender to the presidency.

An intriguing coincidence – or not – is the fact that at Nasser’s funeral, both Anwar Sadat and Ali Sabri suffered heart attacks, which they survived. Was a heart attack ever recognized as a contagious disease?

Was there a conspiracy against President Nasser that ended with his sudden death, bringing Sadat to power with Marwan, his informant? In 2008, an Egyptian court in South Cairo rendered a judgment in favor of Ruqaya Sadat, daughter of late President Anwar Sadat, brought against Dr. Hoda Abdel Nasser, the daughter of Sadat’s predecessor. The judgment was for 150,000 Egyptian pounds, for slandering Sadat by accusing him of masterminding a plan to kill Gamal Abdel Nasser in order to succeed him.

In 1971, Marwan secretly informed President Sadat on Ali Sabri, a former head of the Egyptian General Intelligence Directorate, and former vice president, who was planning a coup together with others including Marwan’s immediate boss, Minister for Presidential Affairs Sami Sharaf. President Sadat gratefully gave Sharaf’s job to Marwan, which gave Marwan access to classified information.

Over the years, the secret information Marwan passed Israel included a report on the delivery to Egypt of Soviet Scud missiles, a report on a terrorist plan to attack an El Al plane in Rome and valuable information regarding Sadat’s meetings with Arab leaders.

However, the feather in Marwan’s hat from the Israeli perspective was his warning, 40 hours before Egypt and Syria’s sudden attack on Israel on Yom Kippur of 1973. In fact, Marwan was off only by a few hours.

The unprecedented claim, made by General Zeira in a press interview, that Marwan was a double agent was interpreted by many to create an alibi for Zeira for his failure to act on earlier warnings prior to the break of the 1973 war. He was accused of adhering to the “concept” that Egypt would not attack Israel until it obtained sufficient military power (which per Zeira’s assessment, was still inadequate), thereby ignoring warning signs. General Zvi Zamir, head of the Mossad during the Yom Kippur War and the personal recipient of the alert from Marwan 40 hours before the Egyptian attack, accused General Zeira of leaking top-secret information, and filed a criminal complaint against Zeira. In return, General Zeira filed, in 2005, a libel lawsuit against General Zamir. The case was removed to arbitration before the former deputy chief justice of the Israeli Supreme Court, Theodore Orr. In his judgment, Justice Orr accepted General Zamir’s version that Marwan had not doubled.

Was Marwan a double agent? On one hand, he gave Israel extremely valuable information that proved accurate. On the other hand, the fact that he volunteered in 1969 to serve Israel without being approached first is suspicious. It is a known fact that most embassies of certain countries are constantly observed from the outside. Israel’s embassy in London is probably not an exception. Furthermore, on October 6, 2004, when Egypt commemorated the October 1973 War, Marwan was viewed on Egyptian television shaking the hand of President Mubarak while they laid a wreath on Nasser’s tomb. This could indicate that Egypt does not consider Marwan a traitor, but rather a loyal Egyptian who managed to double-cross Israel.

Marwan’s wife insisted that he was murdered by Mossad agents and caused the British authorities to reopen the case. After hearing evidence and conducting an investigation, a British coroner, William Dolman, issued today an open verdict saying that there was no evidence to support allegations of murder. He added, “We simply don’t know the facts, despite careful investigation.”

The saga and mystery are unlikely to be put to rest, unless intelligence files become public. And that will not happen in our lifetime.

The Huffington Post Op Ed 7 13 10

Shahram Amiri, an Iranian nuclear scientist, went missing in May 2009 during a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia. Other than the fact that Amiri subsequently resurfaced in the U.S., almost everything else in the espionage-thriller style case is disputed publicly. The barrage of information offered during the past 5 weeks makes it difficult to distinguish between genuine information, disinformation and spins.

When Dr. Amiri went missing, there were reports that he had defected to the United States in a clandestine intelligence operation, while Iran claimed that he had been kidnapped. The case went almost completely off the media radar for more than a year.

Then on June 8, 2010, in a video clip broadcast on Iranian state media, a man claiming to be Dr. Amiri said he had been kidnapped by CIA agents during a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia in 2009. “They took me to a house located somewhere that I didn’t know. They gave me an anesthetic injection,” he said in the video. He then said that he was living in Tucson, Arizona, and had been subjected to eight months of “the most severe tortures and psychological pressures.”

On the same day, a different video clip was posted on YouTube, appearing to have been recorded by the same person, completely contradicting the version offered in the previous video. In the second video, the person claimed to be in the United States voluntarily to continue his education, “I am free here and I assure everyone that I am safe.”

In a third video broadcast on Iran state TV on June 29, 2010, a man appearing to be Dr. Amiri said, “I, Shahram Amiri, am a national of the Islamic Republic of Iran and a few minutes ago I succeeded in escaping U.S. security agents in Virginia. Presently, I am producing this video in a safe place. I could be re-arrested at any time.”

His last video statement coincided with the most recent development in this case: the announcement made by a Pakistan Foreign Ministry spokesman that confirmed Amiri’s arrival at its Washington embassy on July 13, at 6:30pm. The Pakistan Embassy in the United States hosts the Iran interests section, since Iran has no diplomatic ties with the U.S.

The Los Angeles Times reports that Mustafa Rahmani, head of the Iranian interests section, “is making arrangements for [Amiri’s] repatriation back to Iran.” According to the BBC, Iran state radio reported Thursday, “A few hours ago Shahram Amiri took refuge at Iran’s interest section at the Pakistan Embassy in Washington, wanting to return to Iran immediately.”

The inescapable comparison of these events with the defection and re-defection case of Vitaly Yurchenko makes Amiri’s case seem even more bizarre.

Yurchenko, a 25-year veteran KGB officer in the Soviet Union, made a fake defection while working in Rome in 1985, ending up in the U.S. During his interrogations by U.S. intelligence community agents, he identified two Americans as KGB assets: Ronald Pelton, a National Security Agency employee, and Edward Lee Howard, a CIA case officer. The case took a strange turn when in November 1985, just before getting a meal at Au Pied de Cochon, a restaurant in Georgetown, Washington D.C., Yurchenko told the CIA agent accompanying him that he was taking a walk. However, he never returned. Shortly thereafter, Yurchenko appeared in a press conference, and announced that he had been kidnapped and drugged by the CIA. Back in Moscow, he was decorated by the Soviet government for the successful “infiltration operation.”

Questions:

1. Is the person taking refuge at the Pakistani Embassy in Washington D.C. in fact Dr. Amiri, the missing Iranian scientist?
2. If the person is indeed Dr. Amiri, how did he manage to escape? Wasn’t he being held in a safe, escape-proof environment guarded by U.S. intelligence community agents? Did he have outside or inside help?
3. If so, how did Dr. Amiri know to contact and identify his supporters? How did they know to contact and identify him? Was there a pre-arranged procedure of contact, which may support the sham defection theory?
4. Where was Dr. Amiri living? In Arizona, as he claimed in one video, or in Virginia, as he claimed in another video?
5. Whether living in Arizona or Virginia, how did he manage to get to Washington D.C.? Did he have money to pay for the trip? Was there a car waiting for him?
6. In the third video he said that he had escaped a few minutes earlier. If his claim is true, then it means that Dr. Amiri was moved to an Iranian “safe house” in Virginia not far from the location where he was being held by U.S. agents. Who prepared and maintained that “safe house?”
7. How did Dr. Amiri know to go to the Pakistani Embassy? Did anyone who was helping him know that the embassy serves as interest office for Iran?
8. Who filmed/made the videos in which Dr. Amiri claimed to have been kidnapped? You must have an account with YouTube to post. Has the CIA tracked the account holder?
9. Is Amiri trying to re-defect voluntarily, or is he yielding to Iran’s threats to harm his family members, whom he left behind in Iran?
10. Is the anonymous leak to the media that “Amiri operated as a CIA asset in Iran for several years before his defection, providing evidence that Iran continued a program to produce nuclear weapons,” a credible statement or a low blow by a spurned agency to make Amiri change his mind again and not attempt to return to Iran?

These and other nagging questions indicate that if the person inside the Pakistani Embassy is indeed Dr. Amiri, then there must be people within the United States who helped him. Could they be Iranian sleeper agents? How did Amiri know to contact them, or maybe they traced him? How? Was the defection and re-defection an elaborate Iranian ploy to smear the U.S. and deter other Iranian scientists who would seriously consider the U.S. an option if they wanted to defect?

Is it possible that Amiri did not escape from his captors as he alleged, but rather was dumped by the CIA after he gave all the information he had, and made unreasonable demands, making him a liability? If true, then he may have been driven by the CIA to the curb next to the Pakistani Embassy. Once inside the Iranian interests section, did he simply make up the kidnapping and escape stories to protect himself from the wrath of the unforgiving Iranian security services when he returns to Tehran, where he will have to provide plausible explanations or face hanging from a crane?

Answers anyone?